The present invention is directed to a cervical spine orthosis device. More particularly, the present invention is directed to a device which provides a neck collar, providing support to a patient's head, connected to a load bearing chest plate where the chest plate can be moved without completely removing support for the patient's head.
There are a number of prior art neck collars that provide support for a patient's head where it is desirable to restrict the motion of the head and neck. The known neck collars provide varying degrees of restriction with respect to flexion, extension or side-to-side (rotational) movement. Such motion restriction can be critical where damage to the cervical spine is of concern. Such neck collars are commonly used where the wearer has been exposed to some trauma which could result in a cervical spine injury that might be exacerbated by movement of the patient's head or after surgery to the spine. Examples of such collars include the collars disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. Re 32,219 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,097,824. The entire disclosures of these two patents are hereby incorporated by reference. The latter patent describes a collar that is particularly adaptable to extended-wear use. The design provides significant motion restriction while providing comfort to a user that must wear the collar for an extended period of time.
The prior art also contains alternative structures that provide some sort of motion restriction. In particular, a number of devices are available that provide a bracing structure that can be worn by the patient. The brace includes a harness portion that is supported on the patient's torso, a chin support and a rigid bar attached to the chin support and the harness. In these designs, as exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 3,724,452, the motion restriction is solely dependent on the fixed relationship between the chin support and the harness as provided by the rigid bar.
It is also known to provide support for a patient's neck by attaching a neck collar to a bracing structure which is in contact with the torso of the patient. Examples of such collar/brace combinations are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,677,969 and 4,515,153. Looking at the '969 patent a collar, for example 10 in FIG. 1 , is connected via a connecting member, for example 54 , to a front plate, such as 56 . The collar is connected to the supporting member by rivets, e.g., 62 . The collar/brace combination in the '153 patent is very similar. The patents indicate that the connecting rivets can only be removed using a tool such as a pair of pliers and are designed so that they cannot be removed by the patient. One limitation of the arrangement disclosed in these patents is that the supporting member 54 and the front plate 46 are difficult to remove. In certain circumstances, such as when the need arises to perform cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on a patient wearing such an apparatus, it is difficult to access the chest region in view of the presence of the supporting member and the attachment of the supporting member to the collar using rivets that are difficult to remove. Another limitation on this arrangement is the configuration of the collar itself and the extent to which it would provide sufficient support for the head and neck in the absence of the brace if the brace could be removed.
It is desirable to provide a supporting mechanism which provides a collar and an additional support including a load bearing chest plate where the chest plate is easily movable relative to the collar so as to provide access to the chest area. The chest area should be made accessible without removing all of the support that provides head and neck motion restriction.